Charlie Tweed, Notes I,II & III

Nathaniel Mellors, Ourhouse

John Stezaker at Whitechapel

Analogue Soho

This week is the last chance to see Richard Nicholson's photography project, part of the exhibition Analog, at Riflemaker in Soho.  The portraits capture, in all their glory of organised chaos, London's professional darkrooms still printing from film-stock to paper.  Beginning the project in 2006, at that time 204 studios were still in operation yet sadly only 3 years later, on completion of the project, just 6 remained.  

This project echos the all too familiar grief shared by lovers of analogue formats, having also recently taken a further blow at the news the Soho Film Lab (now known as Deluxe Soho, after being bought out by US film giants Deluxe in 2010) will no longer be printing 16mm film.  This was the last lab in the UK still printing 16mm film and is a particularly heavy loss for UK based artist-film makers using this medium.  Tacita Dean, in her article in the Guardian this week, articulates the consequences for film practitioners and the industry.

"Digital is not better than analogue, but different.  What we are asking for is co-existence: that analogue film might be allowed to remain an option for those who want it, and for the ascendency of one not to have to mean the extinguishing of the other.  The real crux of the difference is that artists exhibit, and so care about the final presentation and presence of the artwork in the space.  Other professions have their work mediated into different formats: TV, magazines, billboards, books.  It remains only in galleries and museums that the physical encounter is so critical, which is why artists, in the widest sense, are the most distressed by the obsolescence of analogue mediums."

Sign the online petition to save 16mm film printing in the UK here.  

Analog, also featuring sculptures by Clare Mitten and an interactive light installation by Zigelbaum and Coelho, is on at Riflemaker until 5th March 2011.

Pictured: Richard Nicholson Roy Snell Darkroom, Earlsfield (2006)

Ben Rivers, Slow Action

Saatchi Gallery

Since the Saatchi Gallery opened in 2008 at the Duke of York’s HQ I have resisted reviewing the exhibitions on offer (with the exception of Richard Wilson). The key reason for this being any critique of mine regarding Saatchi Gallery is sure to descend into a recurrent chastisement for its egotistical and shortsighted curatorial ethos. But I can resist no longer and shall, where possible, constrain my comments to as short a statement as is absolutely necessary (although I shall omit discussions of moving image work, just as Saatchi does).

Leaving aside one moment certain views on the responsibilities of a gallery that presents itself as public, what was striking on this most recent visit is the predictable placement of artworks. So predictable in fact that, having been before, it is possible to determine the placement, scale and medium of the artworks prior to entering a room to the point where one can turn to look at a particular spot, expecting a sculpture to fill it and not be surprised when one finds it exactly so. A curious game of curate by numbers, if ever there was one. 

The galleries themselves, large and evenly lit cuboids of space, begin to feel like a sparsely merchandized shopping outlet for obscure home wares rather than a space fervent with innovation and creativity. The works of exciting and contemporarily relevant artists such as Anne Hardy, Karla Black and Steven Claydon, as featured in the Newspeak exhibitions, are housed on a predominantly aesthetic basis and seem only to be valued as such. If this is the case then why not tender Habitat or Ikea for such a hot spot on the King's Road and save themselves the expense of a running a free gallery.

Although admittedly I see little advantage in public galleries with personal agendas (predominantly for the necessity of an autonomy that seems also to have slipped from many public galleries’ remits rather than my distaste at any art space functioning as an economic status symbol), I am not wholly against the concept. However it is the sheer lack of originality in the act of display and the total disregard for the individual integrity of the works themselves, pigeonholed and aesthetically organised that in truth, riles me beyond reason.


Pictured: Steve Bishop Christian Dior, J'adore (Mountain Goat) (2008)

The Curve, Barbican

Aura Satz, Sound Seam

Dara Birnbaum

Fiona Banner at Frith Street